Huckabee on the “RINO” label: The Nazis devalued people too, you know

posted at 6:41 pm on January 23, 2014 by Allahpundit

I’ve looked for a transcript but can’t find one so I’m forced to rely on HuffPo’s account of what he said. On the one hand, they’re a lefty news site, doubtless eager to put his quotes in the worst possible light. On the other hand, their reporter is Jon Ward, who used to work for the Daily Caller and is respected in the field. On the other other hand, the rhetoric sounds kind of Huck-ish, doesn’t it? With some pols, you can look at a quote that’s attributed to them and say, nah, no way. With Huck, you never know when a curveball’s coming. And this subject, the perils of the “RINO” label, has been on his mind lately.

Has it come to this?

“Let’s stop calling each other somehow less Republican than someone else. Be for the person you’re for,” Huckabee said.

He said that he will be traveling to Auschwitz next week for the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp, and noted that the horror of the Holocaust began with the devaluation of people.

“It all started when people were devalued, when people were deemed ‘less than someone else,'” Huckabee said. “We look back on that time in history and we think, ‘How can educated people, university trained, how can a nation like Germany with all of its resources, with its vast level of its population with higher education, get to a place where they can do something so heinous?’ You realize that the only way you can end up there is when you start with the idea that people just aren’t as valuable as you are.”

The clear implication by Huckabee was that those within the GOP who make a habit of demeaning others as not conservative enough are flirting with behavior that can have grave ramifications down the road. It was a serious charge…

“And if I accept that for the great human family, and I’m willing to value every human life as having worth and intrinsic value, then surely I’ll be able to value the life of those who voluntarily join me in a party that I joined when I was a teenager,” he said.

Ward was challenged on his description on Twitter. Here’s his rough transcript of what Huck said:

Assuming that’s accurate, he’s saying … what? That the path to Auschwitz runs through calling him a RINO? No, c’mon. All he’s saying, I think, is that using purity tests to “devalue” others is harmful and apt to lead to purges, whether at a silly trivial level like “RINO” or a grand sinister one like calling Jews “vermin.” He’s not equating the two. Which is fine, except that all political self-identification is inherently exclusionary. If you support single-payer and abortion on demand and call yourself “Republican,” you’re apt to catch some flak — including from Mike Huckabee, I’d bet. The best you can do to redeem his argument is say that ultimately he’s calling for more civility: When you shoo a liberal out of the party, there’s no need to demean him by slapping a pejorative neologism on him. Call him what he is, a liberal Democrat. (For example: “Mike Huckabee, liberal Democrat.”) Okay, but that’s an awfully basic point to require illumination with a Nazi analogy.

In fact, if he’s going to do that, why not use Nazi analogies to discourage all bad practices? E.g., “My three-year-old lied to me about sneaking a cookie from the cookie jar last night, so I reminded her that Hitler told many Big Lies en route to the Final Solution.” “My husband put a ‘Huckabee 2016′ bumper sticker on our car yesterday so I reminded him that Goebbels too used propaganda to hand power to a lunatic.” The punchline here is that Huck’s pushing this dumb anti-RINO campaign because he wants to get tea partiers and libertarians off his back if/when he runs again in 2016, but going Godwin on them just means they’re going to be more antagonistic. Imagine the historical lessons they’ll have for him about the perils of, say, supporting bigger government to “do good.”

Exit question: Second look at Rick Santorum as designated social-con champion in 2016?

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He said that he will be traveling to Auschwitz next week for the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp,

Will Hussein be there to read a speech off a telepromper ?
You know since his grampa liberated Auschwitz and then cried in an attic for the rest of his life ?
Lemme say this, Auschwitz would make one heckuva backdrop for a photo-op,
better than 4 flag-draped coffins arriving from Benghazi .

You devalued yourself Huckster. And if calling you a RINO is like the holocaust, how must democrats feel. I mean, shoot a RINO has to be at least slightly better than a full blown mindless liberal democrat.

Grow a spine moron. Now see what I did there Huck? I TRULY devalued you.

There are enough documented cases of Huckabee supporting the nanny state and of criminal naiveté which disqualify him from consideration by any conservative. The nuances of what he said here is irrelevant to me.

Exit question: Second look at Rick Santorum as designated social-con champion in 2016?

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Since I would stay home rather than vote for another RINO (i.e. anyone to the left of Ted Cruz or Mike Lee), might it be a better idea to form the RINO Party?

It would support ALL of the IMPORTANT positions of the GOPe Donor Class:

– The Gang of Eight “Immigration Reform Bill” – which would give Marco Rubio a solid shot at getting the 2016 RINO Party Presidential nomination.

– Obamacare – RINO’s “gag reflex” is peculiarly absent now the “Obamacare is in place” – so this would be REALLY convenient for the GOPe leadership’s obeisance to the GOPe Donor Class behind the scenes push on behalf of the health insurance companies and big pharma.

– Last, and by all means LEAST, it would provide a home for social conservatives whose principles are a mile wide …. and millimeter deep.

The clear implication by Huckabee was that those within the GOP who make a habit of demeaning others as not conservative enough are flirting with behavior that can have grave ramifications down the road.

What about the cranks in GOP who publically bad-mouth TEA Party, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul , every chance they can find ?
Are these cranks worthy of worship or should they put a cork in it too ?

Republican In Name Only is a term applied to those who are unable or unwilling to hold to the tenets that used to be the platform of the Republican party. Those we feel embrace the ideological and political positions of the LEFT more than they embrace the ideological and political positions of conservatives or, indeed, the platform of the Republican party.

I don’t see how Huckabee equates that with valuing those individuals less as human beings than ourselves. I don’t know those individuals, in most cases, as human beings. I know them as political entities.

But if Huckabee has any notion of somehow welding together the disparate parts of the party base with comments like that he’s deluding himself.

The clear implication by Huckabee was that those within the GOP who make a habit of demeaning others as not conservative enough are flirting with behavior that can have grave ramifications down the road.

Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, said that because of his Christian faith, “the one thing that I have to constantly remind myself is that none of us are better than another, and no one is less than any of us.”

“And if I accept that for the great human family, and I’m willing to value every human life as having worth and intrinsic value, then surely I’ll be able to value the life of those who voluntarily join me in a party that I joined when I was a teenager,” he said.

too many I’s. Huck may think that he’s the savior of the party or county, but he’s already done damage to the R party.

Who cares? Huck is dead in the water. I’m not voting for him, and I know I’m not the only one. Make him the subject of the left’s attacks, and give him all the media play you want, but I don’t care if he drops off the face of the planet.

Assuming that’s accurate, he’s saying … what? That the path to Auschwitz runs through calling him a RINO?

Sounds like AP’s hyperbole, methinks.

“Let’s stop calling each other somehow less Republican than someone else. Be for the person you’re for,” Huckabee said.

It’s true that we need to make an affirmative case as to what we’re for, and not just what we’re against. When Glenn Beck was on Fox News, I appreciated his attacks on the left, but I was never a full-fledged enthusiast because I never knew what he was for. At the same time, I do think it is fair to point to the principles of the party, which describe what we’re for, and contend that someone is more or less in line with those principles. It is then incumbent on each debater to also make the case as to why that deviation or hewing to the platform is for the better or worse.

I don’t remember Huckabee uttering a single peep when Ted Cruz and other patriotic conservatives were attacked for standing on principle.

Huckabee, who, like many RINO’s, is for mass illegal alien amnesty, only has a problem when conservatives refuse to support Dem-lite candidates who promote disastrous policies like illegal alien amnesty.

Huckabee, in his effort to become the GOP nominee, tried associating Mormonism with Satan in 2008 while pretending he meant no harm, and it seems Democrat tactic-loving Huckabee hasn’t changed a bit.

When will you answer for the 1033 pardons you issued while Governor of Arkansas? When will you explain to everyone why you issued so many pardons at the end of your Governorship and pardoned 12 convicted murderers?

Frankly anyone who simply issues pardons without a review of the case and against strong objections from local attorneys and voters should never be allowed to hold a government job of any type. Dog catchers have more integrity than you Mr Huckabee.

What is worse RINO or “wacko bird,” “extremist,” “domestic terrorist,” or “the enemy”?

I have wondered, however, how Hitler could get the whole German country to go along with him. But then I got a tiny taste of the hate a country and all its media could inflict on a person or people when Sarah Palin became a threat. “Feminists” attacked a 17 year old girl for being pregnant and not married, they called her a slut, and a baby with downs syndrome was the but of jokes via Stewart, Colbert, and Family Guy. Eminem put Palin in a wood chipper in a music video. But yeah, RINO is so mean.

“It all started when people were devalued, when people were deemed ‘less than someone else,’”

Like, I dunno, racist Tea Partiers, “wacky” types like Sharron Angle and all the other transgressors who are blamed for keeping squishes away from committee chairmanships, pro-lifers who are called a “millstone around the GOP’s neck”? Those “devalued” types?

I have nothing against the term RINO, but I think we should exercise a bit more discretion concerning who we attach such labels to. Was it not Reagan that said something to the effect of an 80% friend not being a 20% enemy?

Personally, I would reserve such labels only to those that blatantly disregard Reagan’s 11th Commandment. In other words, folks like Peter King and John McCain, engaging in personal attacks against Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, deserve the label. As far as I know, Huckabee hasn’t engaged in any personal attacks against his fellow Republicans.

I have wondered, however, how Hitler could get the whole German country to go along with him…

magicbeans on January 23, 2014 at 7:20 PM

Because the Nazis in national elections never did come close to a simple parliamentary majority, even using street-thug tactics…until they became the dominant party in a coalition government and seized the reins of absolute power. By then the whole country didn’t have much of a choice.

In fact, if he’s going to do that, why not use Nazi analogies to discourage all bad practices? E.g., “My three-year-old lied to me about sneaking a cookie from the cookie jar last night, so I reminded her that Hitler told many Big Lies en route to the Final Solution.” “My husband put a ‘Huckabee 2016′ bumper sticker on our car yesterday so I reminded him that Goebbels too used propaganda to hand power to a lunatic.”

In fairness to Huck, that’s about where we are with liberals: anything and everything they don’t like is akin to Nazism. This is a trick Mussolini used to pull: he made “fascist” a dirty word by declaring anything he didn’t like to be fascist, completely ignoring the actual meaning of the word. Nazism and Nazi are quickly losing all real meaning because they’re thrown out so cavalierly as charges against one’s ideological opponents.

….So, NOT in fairness to Huck, I thought he was better than stooping to liberal BS, but as AP said, you just never know with this guy.

These RINOs are getting a little sensitive about being called RINOs. Maybe we should call them “democrats”. Or better yet, why don’t they just join the democrat party. That way, they can stop pretending to be conservatives.

The punchline here is that Huck’s pushing this dumb anti-RINO campaign because he wants to get tea partiers and libertarians off his back if/when he runs again in 2016, but going Godwin on them just means they’re going to be more antagonistic.

Off his back? You could land a 767 on his back, and yes, the mere mention of your name makes me see red, RINO pig boy.
Keep your variety show, Hack, I mean, Huck.

“RINO” isn’t accurate. People from Romney to McCain to LaTourette are exemplary Republicans. In fact, they can keep that “Republican” label.
ddrintn on January 23, 2014 at 7:38 PM

So what? Yeah, yeah, “CINO” is more accurate. We know. But RINO is easier to pronounce and more people know the term. We get what it means, even if it’s not a precise term. When there’s an insult that works, stick with it.

The negative RINO label stings, and I say we should attach it to every pro-amnesty sellout.

You say RINO’s are exemplary Republicans, but I think the “R” in our the of the term “RINO” is based on an understanding of what we want more Republicans to be like.

Being a social conservative, I don’t really understand why so many other social conservatives place a couple of issues before all other important conservative positions, ending up with nitwits like Santorum and Huckabee rather than a functional candidate.

It is true, though, that we should spend more time saying what we’re for.

Reminds me of how commenters like ddrintn were rightly criticized last year for doing nothing but attacking Romney. These commenters refused to ever say whom or what they supported or would support. That’s a problem.

What is worse RINO or “wacko bird,” “extremist,” “domestic terrorist,” or “the enemy”?

magicbeans on January 23, 2014 at 7:20 PM

I mean, we pretty much know how the Republican leadership sees the Tea Party at this point – a bunch of frothing, “reich-wing” Nazis.

In case conservatives still haven’t figured out the Republican Party is just as bitter an enemy as the Democrat Party, here is yet more evidence. The next time you hear someone like John Boehner pretending to reach out to the Tea Party, remember in private he’s probably calling you a Nazi.

I know, I’m not a big fan of Huckabee, but why don’t we let cooler heads prevail. He could be talking about the Republicans that dumped on Todd Akin, or any subject for that matter. What’s going on here at this site lately?

Huckabee is feeding the stereotype. Small government advocates will not get any voter traction with busy American families while this whiz kid is hanging around dropping pearls of Li’L Abner wisdom at the feet of the liberal media.

‘RINO’ is nothing but shorthand for someone who calls himself a Republican but who holds many positions that align well with big government Democrats, lefties, and socialists. Nothing about it ‘devalues’ anyone. It is used to describe someone who has a lot in common with Dems, and who is on many issues to the left of most, nationwide, who call themselves Republicans.

Interesting how the Huckster is doing what Dems and lefties reflexively do when they habitually and routinely try to connect their political opponents to Nazis. Very interesting. But not surprising. He’s that kind of guy.

Apparently he is too stupid to realize he just affirmed the accuracy of the label.

I’ll dispense with the RINO label and just call the Huckster a fraud and a phony. He is of the William Jennings Bryan wing of the GOP, comprising former Dems and their progeny who started calling themselves Republicans in the 60s and 70s. In their heart they are still big government lovers. They just don’t always like the Dem’s big government recipes. However, they have their own big government recipes. They just try to avoid talking about it in small government company.